‘THERE ARE FAIRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

A Crystal Garden of Danger with the First Doctor and Dodo

This story called ‘There are Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden’ is by Sam Lester. It features the First Doctor and Dodo. As far as I’m aware, this is the only ‘Doctor Who’ contribution made by Sam Lester. It’s an intriguing story to check out in the ‘Short Trips’ anthology, but it’s not very satisfying. 😐

In the story, the Doctor and Dodo visit a planet that seems to be in an advanced state of decay. Dodo doesn’t like the planet at all, since it smells bad, oozes and looks rotten. She wants to get away as soon as possible. The Doctor tries to get her interested in where they are, but she doesn’t want to. 😐

Eventually, Dodo comes across a beautiful crystal garden. She also sees tiny fairies hovering around a large, beautiful, unfolding crystal flower in the centre of the garden. She thinks she understands why the Doctor believes the place to be beautiful. She also followed a creature when on this planet.

The creature was singing a mournful song, which is peculiar, since it didn’t have a mouth. The Doctor does something to heal the creature. Once the Doctor and Dodo follows it to the crystal garden, the creature dies and a fairy comes out of it. To Dodo’s horror, the Doctor smashes the crystal flower. 😐

I was puzzled by how the ending turned out. I had to look up on TARDIS wiki to understand the plot. In the TARDIS, the Doctor shows Dodo that where they had landed was a giant flower. The crystal was a parasite killing the flower. I didn’t quite get that aspect of the story when I read it the first time.

‘There are Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden’ rating – 5/10